


Inevitable

by Severina



Category: Oz (1997)
Genre: Community: hardtime100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-04
Updated: 2009-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:51:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gloria makes a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season Six.  
> Prompt 04: Want Ads (LJ's Hardtime100 Community)

Ryan spends more time in the infirmary after Seamus is killed.

Gloria watches him with the patients and notices that his hands are a little more gentle, his tongue a little less sharp. When Miguel is recovering from his overdose, jittering on the hospital bed and muttering in a confused mixture of English and Spanish, it is Ryan who sits with him, who bathes his face in cold water and who holds his hand. When Gloria is questioning a new arrival about his symptoms, she finds herself glancing up from the chart to watch Ryan making his rounds of the stricken in their beds. She smiles when she sees that he's coaxed a grin from the latest victim in one of the bloody battles between the ever-changing factions warring in the prison.

She wants to go to him, but can't. And when he glances up and sees her staring, smiles back at her, she frowns and forces herself to look away.

After a long day, Gloria only wants to go home, grab a beer from the fridge, put her feet up and watch something mindless on television. But there are patient records to be updated and paperwork to be filed. So she stretches when she gets up from her desk, rubs at her back and distractedly thinks that she's got to make another appointment with her chiropractor, and then gets to work.

When she next looks up, the lights in the infirmary have been dimmed. And Ryan is hovering in the doorframe, fingers of one hand wrapped around the wire fencing, watching her as she crouches beside the cabinets that line the wall and methodically fits thick files into small and overcrowded drawers.

"Gloria?" he says softly.

She rubs at her eyes. Glances at the clock, and blinks. "Ryan. What are you still doing here?"

Ryan releases his hold on the wall and takes a step into the room. "Well, uh, the CO was going to bring me back to Em City," he says. "But I told him you were short staffed and that you'd probably want me to stay. Cochrane was having his little uh… bowel problem… at the time. So the hack took off pretty fast after that." Ryan tries for a smile. "I didn't think you'd mind."

Gloria shakes her head as she rises to her feet, her back protesting. She winces and then Ryan is there, offering a hand.

"You okay?" he asks, his voice filled with concern.

"Fine," she says as she lets him help her to her feet. "Just a little trouble with m…" She shakes her head. "Thank you for staying, Ryan. I do appreciate it."

"Sure, Gloria. Anything for you."

Anything. His hand is still in hers, soft and pliant. She studies his face and sees only affection there, but still she pulls away. "I'll have an officer escort you back to Em City," she says brusquely.

His hand hovers in the air but she is already turning away from the confusion in his eyes, gripping the edge of the countertop so that he won't see the need that almost makes her quake.

"I'll just help you finish up," he says from somewhere behind her.

"No," she says. She studies the calendar on the wall, the stack of folders piled haphazardly on the counter. She takes a breath and schools her face into something like indifference. "It's fine."

But when she turns back he is already crossing to the desk, reaching out a hand to shut down her computer.

"Ryan!"

He squints at the screen, and the light transforms his face into a map of angles and sharp lines. "Hey, you're moving?"

There is a still a half-eaten bagel with cream cheese on the desk, a cup of coffee that's long gone cold. Gloria remembers thinking that she'd take advantage of a free fifteen minutes to check out her prospects, make a few calls, even if it wasn't exactly appropriate to do so on work hours. She'd pulled up the listings and plucked a yellow legal pad from her desk drawer, jotted a few notes. Then Mueller had started convulsing, and then a fist fight had nearly broken out between Andersen and one of the homeboys from Unit B, and then--

"Ryan," she says softly. "Don't."

"Hey." Ryan looks up and meets her eyes. "These are for Chicago."

"Ryan."

His eyes narrow. "Why are you looking up apartment listings in Chicago, Gloria?"

She shakes her head. "Ryan," she says again. It seems to be all that she can say.

"Answer me, Gloria," he bites out.

She takes a step then, paralysis broken by the tautness of his body, by the fear in his eyes. Her hand finds his arm and she touches him softly, a bare brush of her fingers against his skin. "You have to know this is for the best," she says.

"No," he says. His voice cracks on the word before he swallows and lifts his chin. "No."

"What we want," she says gently, "can never be. It's best if I--"

"NO!" Ryan wrenches his arm away. He shakes his head. "No! You can't do this!"

"Ryan--"

"You can't leave me, Gloria! I need you!"

His hands grip her arms and his face fills her vision, twisted in a grimace of pain. He pulls at her and her feet almost leave the floor; she feels like a rag doll in his arms. "Don't do this," he pleads. "You can't do this! I love you, Gloria!"

She wants him. She knows this. She breathes easily, lets her body relax against his and waits for the punishing grip on her biceps to ease. She rests one hand on his chest and feels the racing of his heart; brushes his cheek lightly with the fingertips of the other. Tries to tell him with her eyes the things that he won't accept from her lips.

She wants him, yes. But when his head dips toward her, she angles her own head away so that his lips brush her cheek.

"Officer!" she calls.

Ryan moans. "No." And his arms grip her tighter.

"Officer!"

"Don't do this!" It starts as a whimper, becomes a scream. "Don't do this, Gloria! I love you! You're all I've got! I love you!"

She still remembers the hesitant press of his lips on hers, the weight of her hair in his hand. The taste of his tears. She goes to sleep at night remembering. Dreams of things that can never be, and wakes to thoughts of him.

She can't go on like this.

She still hears him screaming long after the CO has taken him away.


End file.
